Fanny’s pockets: cotton, consumption and domestic economy, 1780-1840

Burman, B. and White, J. (2007) Fanny’s pockets: cotton, consumption and domestic economy, 1780-1840. In, Batchelor, Jennie and Kaplan, Cora (eds.) Women and Material Culture 1650 –1830. Basingstoke, UK. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 31-51.

Abstract

This essay utilises new research findings from the Pockets of History project. Intended as a development of, and corrective to, certain dress history narratives, it is significant because it asks a key question: ‘what does the analysis and interpretation of material culture commit scholars to doing?’ It suggests the benefits of a methodology that draws on a full range of techniques and approaches from the emerging field of material culture studies. In the process, we demonstrate the interdependence of textual, visual and material culture and argue for an inclusive social history based on genuine dialogue between what have been discrete disciplines. The social history of these objects, the pockets, and the social worlds within which they were produced and used, we argue, requires a genuinely interdisciplinary inquiry which can draw on histories of technology, trade, business and dress as well as broader processes of socio-economic change, alongside a newer attention to the material properties of objects and a similar recognition of the importance of literary and visual culture records and methods.

This record has no associated files available for download.

Contributors

Download statistics